On a quiet night last May, a 22-year-old Ukrainian builder set fire to a car once owned by the prime minister. Days later, he and an accomplice torched two houses linked to Sir Keir Starmer, one of which was occupied by his sister-in-law and her family. Roman Lavrynovych and Stanislav Carpiuc were convicted this week at the Old Bailey of conspiring to commit arson. But the real instigator, the BBC has revealed, was a 23-year-old Russian diplomat named Evgeny Lyukshin, who directed the attacks from Moscow via the messaging app Telegram, offering Russian citizenship and glorifying President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin’s hand in this plot is part of a wider campaign of sabotage, provocation and lies designed to destabilise the UK.
At the heart of the campaign is a tactic known as hybrid warfare: using proxies, disinformation and online manipulation to create chaos without direct military confrontation. Russian operatives have created fake far-right and Muslim groups on social media to organise acts of vandalism and stoke division. One such group, called Direct Action, orchestrated attacks on six mosques and an Islamic school in London, covering them with racist graffiti. The morning after one attack, the handler EL posted a job ad on Telegram for Ukrainians in London, asking them to take photos of the damage to circulate online. The Metropolitan Police has investigated the vandalism as anti-Muslim hate crimes, but no arrests have been made.
“Russian hybrid warfare in the UK: how a diplomat directed arson via Telegram.”
The Russian embassy dismissed the allegations, saying: “We reject any attempt to associate Russia or its foreign ministry with unlawful activities.” It added that Russia poses “no threat to the United Kingdom or its people”. Yet evidence uncovered by the BBC shows that EL—identified as Lyukshin, the son of a senior Russian official and trained in information warfare—also stoked tensions by posting lies about the motive for the Starmer arson attacks, which were amplified by figures such as far-right activist Tommy Robinson.
For British readers, this matters because it reveals a direct and ongoing threat to national security and social cohesion. Russian operatives are using ordinary people, often immigrants, as unwitting or willing pawns to carry out violent acts and magnify existing fault lines in society. The campaign is remote, cheap and deniable, making it hard to counter. It targets the prime minister’s family, religious minorities, and the very fabric of community trust.
Key questions answered: Q: What is Russian hybrid warfare? Hybrid warfare is a strategy that combines military and non-military tools—such as cyberattacks, disinformation, and covert sabotage—to weaken an adversary without open war. In the UK, it has involved using Telegram to recruit individuals to commit arson and vandalism, while creating fake social media groups to amplify division.
Q: Who was behind the arson attacks on Keir Starmer’s properties? The attacks were directed by a Telegram handler known as EL, identified by the BBC as Evgeny Lyukshin, a 23-year-old Russian diplomat. He remotely instructed Lavrynovych and Carpiuc, offering money and even Russian citizenship. The two men have been convicted; Lyukshin has not been charged.
Q: How do fake far-right and Muslim groups fit into this? Russian operatives created these groups to organise real-world acts of vandalism, such as spray-painting racist graffiti on mosques, and then used the resulting footage to stoke fear and anger. The aim is to make it look like internal extremism, while the true orchestrators remain hidden abroad.
What happens next? The convicted men await sentencing. The Metropolitan Police has said it is investigating the mosque vandalism as hate crimes, but so far no arrests have been made. The BBC’s investigation has put Lyukshin’s name in the open, though Russia has not commented on his role. Counter-terrorism police and MI5 are likely to step up monitoring of Telegram channels used by Russian handlers. The case is a stark reminder that hybrid warfare is not a future threat—it is happening now, on British soil.